Madras Summers

(also: SS4H #3) Memories of tent-making, club-forming, book-reading, coconut-cutting, Chithi-watching, beach-visiting...

Memories of Madras Summers come to me sepia-toned. 

I wonder whether this is because the summer days were reddish-brown, with June temperatures in the mid-to-late 30C range or if the colours have faded from memories as if they were photographs… after all, I appear to have reached an age where I can say with some authority, “this was more than half my lifetime ago.” 

My maternal grandparents’ house in Madras, affectionately referred to as Vales amongst the family, was where nearly all of my summer holidays were spent. It was the quintessential grandparental home with peak occupancy during summer months through an influx of both domestic and international residents. When my aunt and her family (specifically, my sister A, who is my age and part of every “we” mentioned below) had moved in, a first floor was built, extra rooms were built, doubling the space for fun and creating memories. 

Vales, 2017

During Madras Summers, 

We were architects. Makeshift tents between the wheelchair and the walker conjured alternate universes in a way that only children on summer holidays could create. But only during thatha-paati’s afternoon naps, so we wouldn’t inconvenience them. 

We were entrepreneurs. We sold highly expensive soda in plastic cups and home made snacks back to the adults who had purchased (or made) them for us to begin with. We also created a children’s club (Whizkidz!) with a membership of two. It was rather top heavy with a rotating Presidency and Vice-Presidency which may have led to its downfall. 

We were explorers. Two ten-year-olds embarked on questionable, unsupervised attempts at cutting coconuts, which hung close to the terrace, using a simple blade by climbing staircase railings. 

We were entertainers/entertained. Family reunions involved cultural performances, impassioned intellectual debates, definitely antakshari and occasionally hilarious Hindi to Tamil dumb charades translation by paati in her enactments. We would rent VCDs/DVDs including winning choices like Aap Ka Suroor, The Moviee, The Real Luv Story. 

We were voracious readers. Malory Towers. St Clare’s. Famous Five. Secret Seven. Baby Sitters Club(!!), a lot of those Mary Kate and Ashley book series. While Murugan Lending Library would generally come through, we would pool pocket money for joint ownership of books from Landmark (only the best bookshop there ever was) after intense mental maths sessions of budget vs expenses. 

We treated ourselves. Sometimes, we went to the beach to enjoy orange ice-lollies, raw mango with chili powder and walking on the cemented path instead of venturing into the water (or even the sand). On special nights, after the beach, we would eat dinner at Eden where corn-on-toast counted as a delicacy. Other times, rounds of thayir sadam (curd rice) with an assorted selection of pickles or side dishes would be served to a circle, in a way all Tamil kids would know. Occasionally, mini samosas from Food World/Nilgiris would make it home. 

The half-hidden tree on the left was subject to our coconut cutting adventures.

During Madras Summers, 

Cricket was played, windows were broken. 

Six of twelve cousins formed Mass Mosquito Murderers for two days for enhanced mosquito vigilance and protection. 

I arrived with Punjabi-accented Tamil and left with Tamil-accented Hindi.

We met people we were related to but didn’t quite understand how, including ones we became close to but insisted on calling them “unknown cousins”.

We laid bedding on the floor of thatha-paati’s room, where air conditioning would be switched on after ensuring every last window was latched and doors were shut (that Indianism of preventing AC “leaking”). 

Tamil TV primetime entertainment - special shoutout to Chithi (1999-2001) - or whatever Paati wanted to watch was what the entire family watched.

From our American cousins, we learnt random phrases and picked up information about American life and culture. For instance learning what Facebook was when it first launched… and that one time our cousin asked a confused storekeeper if he knew where Chris Brown’s CDs were stocked. “Chris Brown laam teriyadu ma!” (=“I don’t know no Chris Browns”).

Nostalgia helps me notice magic in the mundane:

Watching Kasturi draw the daily kolam (rangoli) on the driveway;

Paati picking flowers from the garden for the temple;

Thatha’s super disciplined life and gentle smile despite being a stroke patient for two decades, unable to speak and largely paralysed;

Paati’s handiwork (crochet, cross-stitched, stitched, knit…) in every corner of the house;

A’s paternal Paati who always stood in the first floor balcony to say hi and bye at the beginning and end of each visit.

Paati’s garden + flowers for the temple.

Paati’s select handiwork.

During Madras Summers, however, there was something that never happened. I never worked on my summer holiday homework. That was reserved for train journeys and embarrassing my mother by announcing to the Coach that school was reopening the following week and I had just started my homework.

With Paati, outside Vales. I’m on the bottom left.